Update #4 - Add-Ons (Updated Oct 11), Digital Tiers, and DRM

Add-Ons (Updated Oct 11)

Looking to customize your reward tier a bit? Add the following on to your pledge using the Manage Pledge button at the top of the Project Eternity Kickstarter site. When making an add-on you need to manually change the amount of your pledge when using the Manage Pledge button.

You can change your pledge as much as you want during the Kickstarter campaign, you will only be charged after the end of the campaign based upon what is listed as your pledge at that time.

Note: All add-ons require base pledge to be at the $20 tier and above.

For T-shirt add-ons, we will ask for the size that you want at the end of the Kickstarter campaign in a survey that will be sent to you in e-mail.

As a quick tutorial on how to add add-ons, goto the Project Eternity site on Kickstarter and then hit the Manage Your Pledge button. The reward tier you had already selected will still be selected and the amount will be in the big box at the top. All you need to do is add the dollar amount that covers the add-ons you would like to your pledge and enter the new total number. For instance, if you are at the $35 Pledge level and want to add one Digital Download, you would enter $60 as your total pledge.

After the Kickstarter campaign is over, we will send you a survey that will let you explain how you wanted to additional money pledged should be used.

Update #4

Well you all did it, you helped us get to $1.6M and we now have a Mac version and are adding more story into the world.

We have also been listening and reading your feedback on Kickstarter and have some changes that are happening as soon as this update is posted. One thing we are not updating just yet are the stretch goals but don’t worry, those are going to get updated very soon. Oh, and we are putting a schedule together for updates that will include guest stars almost every day – Josh will be talking more about the design tomorrow (Sep 20), our unflappable CTO Chris Jones (architect of the Fallout and Arcanum engines) on Friday (Sep 21), and I think we will be able to squeeze one in from Mr. Tim Cain over the weekend.

So, what are those changes?!?

DRM-Free Option

You asked and we are delivering. In conjunction with GOG, we are going to offer a DRM-free version of the game for our Kickstarter Backers. When the campaign ends, you will be able to choose whether you would like a key from GOG or Steam. For our Mac friends, we are still working on a DRM-free option, since GOG does not currently support the Mac. Oh, and the great guys at GOG are having a special right now on all of the great Infinity Engine games (ends September 21st!) so check that out as well.

New Digital Tiers

We are adding a $50 and an $80 digital tier. The $50 tier will get you the digital version of the game, the soundtrack, the digital version of the Collector’s Book, a collection of wallpapers made for multiple resolutions and multiple monitors, high resolution concept art, a high resolution version of the map, and ringtones. For the $80 tier, you will get all of that plus a digital copy of the strategy guide, and a second digital download of the game.

New for our Collector's Edition Box Level ($140)

Lastly we want to announce that we are going to give our backers at the Collector’s Edition Box Level ($140) a little extra today and that is Beta access to the game! That’s just a little taste of what we will be adding into tiers in the coming days and weeks through stretch goals and the occasional random act.

@Dime, beta access for 25000 players may be too much. It depends on how this access is organized. If there will be just an automated crush report collection, then it's okay. But if Obsidian is going to take a personal approach and is going to create a feedback system and to appoint supervisors for communication with all beta testers, then 25000 players are too much for their budget.

With GOG, you only need to go online to download a game. Once its installer has been downloaded, you can copy it across to a machine without Internet access and install/play from there - fredgiblet's statement above about GOG needing a connection to install is wrong. You can even close your GOG account without affecting the games downloaded/installed, though you should make multiple backups of the installers before taking such a step.

@fred & brys
If Steam's offline mode works that way now, that's great - but it definitely wasn't working that way over the summer when I tried to play Skyrim and New Vegas while staying with my folks in rural Virginia (where Internet access is scarce at best). I could not launch either game unless I was able to get online first. Perhaps they've changed it since then, which is good. But I still prefer the GOG option and am very glad it's available.

I can see his point on this a bit. I remember when EA said Mass Effect 3 would be an Origin exclusive game, Steam users went ape**** and demanded it be on Steam or they would never buy it. They kept on saying Origin is stupid, it will never be as good as Steam ever and that EA was greedy for wanting to put ME3 solely on their own e-store. Steam users can be just as visceral as DRM-free supporters, you just gotta push the right buttons to make them rage.

Well, if you're honestly asking a question and it's not just rhetorical: The trouble with defending Steam, or any bad behavior, is that as that behavior gains acceptance other options disappear. So if Steam were simply another channel to purchase your games I'd have no problem with it at all, but it has rapidly become the only channel for many games. Including this one, initially (hence the backlash).

You can see other examples of this - Do you remember when the Quake 3 beta came out and it was later discovered that the game was spying on players? Sending information back to Id about users' video cards, operating systems, other miscellaneous data? Outrage! But Id had it's defenders and they persisted and nowadays it's just assumed that any game you install will spy on you in some capacity. I can't remember the last game I installed that didn't trip my firewall.

Or, for a non game example, how about getting groped at the airport? The TSA gets away with it because a large segment of the population continues to support and defend them, believing (erroneously) that being groped makes them safer somehow. As the practice is allowed to continue it becomes simply the new normal and the remaining few who protest are labeled as malcontents, troublemakers.

Of course, thankfully, this is no longer an issue for this game, but it remains a big problem with PC games in general.

@fredgiblet
I'm an anti-DRM person, and I've got no problem with Steam users. I just dislike having to run two programs to use one. Steam may be light-weight and in the background, but I just don't want that program in the background adding to the resource use on my system. I see no need for it. If i bought my game, i shouldn't have to have a nanny program running in the background making sure I am not sharing it. I realize Steam offers a lot of features like Steamworks, but for many games, many people don't use them

My Steam copy of Borderlands and Batman Arkhum Asylum have steam support, but I never use it. Don't need it. So why do i have to run Steam every time? At the very least, Steam should include a "Check here to run Steamcheck" and Steamcheck would verify you are the owner then shut down and run the game normal. If that were the case, I'd happily use Steam, but it's not, so I avoid it as often as possible.

It's been said by many people, including industry professionals, that intrusive always-on DRM is not the answer. It's penalizing all gamers for the bad actions of some. If you like Steam, good on you, but some of don't, and we'd like an option. Something that let's the content makers know they aren't being stolen from while not involving them constantly tracking the game every last second to be absolutely certain.

The problem, as far as I can see, is that some people have a principled aversion to DRM, not a PRACTICAL aversion, but a PRINCIPLED one. Because of this they feel the need to react negatively and challenge Steams use. The reality is that the practical issues with Steam, while present, are minor to negligible for the vast majority of people, so they can't make a good, widely applicable argument on practical merits. The result of this is that they feel the need to defend their positions, but they know they aren't going to provide a convincing practical argument and they know that if they have to justify their position that DRM is bad on principle that they've already lost (since if we agreed the discussion wouldn't be happening in the first place).

This leads to the final result where they have to attack us and pretend that we're unthinking supporters of Steam solely because, to us, the benefits of Steam outweigh the detriments.

I absolutely did read his/her post. I was clarifying that offline mode works, it's been unreliable in the past but has recently been (/fingerscrossed) fixed. For real this time.

The argument over a one time activation in the comments of a digitally distributed game is ridiculous as well. Fact is you'll need internet to download the installer from GOG, you'll even need to log into your GOG account to do so. If this was a discussion about a retail Steamworks game that argument would have far more merit, but that's simply not the case here. It's incredibly pedantic at this point.

Besides, the crux of my comment was that I'm still baffled over a handful of people's insistence of harping about Steam over and over and over and over again, right from the start of this project and even past the DRM free announcement. What exactly is the point of that? This isn't an 'there can only be one!' thing, nobody that wants a Steam version is going off into a 'I hate GOG and here's why' rant...so what's with labeling people as "Steam Defenders" and generally coming off as really hostile?

I guess that's what I get for being reasonable and not having to pick a side and think of one or the other as an enemy though.

I recognize, and have had to accept, that games like Planescape: Torment don't usually get funded in the current state of the industry. I'm SO glad that you guys have found another way to make the games you love to make, and that I love to play. With the decline of Bioware at the money-grubbing hands of EA, it's nice to see something fresh coming along; something that isn't a sequel to a 10-year old IP.

OH NO! You're required to connect to the internet for less t han a minute! However will you survive?!?!? Especially since half the games out there you'll be wanting a patch on launch day anyway!?!?!?!?! OH NOES!!!!

@Ian

I don't see why you couldn't. They'll be sending out a survey at the end of the KS that you'll be filling out so the only issue would be that any questions would need to go through you in the meantime and if there's some sort of backers forum you'll probably need to register with your own e-mail and then give the password to the person

That's funny because I just unplugged my internet, launched Steam, went into offline mode painlessly, and launched New Vegas without a problem. I also played it when I had no internet for a week a few months ago.""
- Great, but you cannot install New Vegas. Which for one time was a deal-breaker for me. I bought the game to play while my internet was down. As... well... it's a SINGLE PLAYER GAME.
And yet I COULDN'T RUN the game I bought because Steam refused to install it without internet connection.
It's ridiculous.

Not even to mention the fact that ever since recent update of T&Cs all the games on Steam ain't yours anymore. They are only borrowed to you for as long as Valve and publisher finds it profitable. And for as long as they won't decide to remove it from your library without any explanation.
So even if you buy New Vegas in a shop - you don't own it nor any rights to it. You just buy a possible option of playing the game IF Valve allows you to do so.

I don't know if anyone has recommended this, but I think it could be helpful if you updated the FAQ perhaps (if you can) with explanations on exactly what each tier offers in order to account for additional things like Beta access and whatnot.

Thanks for the tip on the sale on GOG. I never did play the Icewind Dale games. Will be purchasing those ASAP. May need to wait to play though since Torchlight 2 is released at Midnight tonight though.

Did you read Saber's post? Being able to activate and THEN go offline means nothing, it's the fact that you need to activate in the first place that's the problem. Consoles have heavy DRM, true, but do not require activation (sort of, it's getting more complicated as time goes on). DRM is always bad, but it's activation that's the real evil here.

@Kimuji I think what he's saying would be something similar as valve games in Steam. When I buy HL2 for PC, I'm also able to play it on my mac using the same account. They were also a couple old boxed games allowing a double instal both mac and pc.

@Kimuji
I don't see why not. Once you have paid for the game on one platform, why would you pay for another? No one would. So it would be a case of giving something away that no one would pay for anyway. But like I said, _if_ you intend to charge different prices for different platforms it's a different story. Because then people would of course pay for the cheapest platform only ;-)

And I wasn't really thinking about consoles since: a) they are inherently _not_ DRM free; and b) they typically price them differently from platform to platform (and completely differently from PC).

That's funny because I just unplugged my internet, launched Steam, went into offline mode painlessly, and launched New Vegas without a problem. I also played it when I had no internet for a week a few months ago.

Honestly, I'm not sure why you and others feel the need to continue harping about Steam. Obsidian heard you guys and (rightly) have a DRM free version worked out, nobody ever objected to that happening at any point in the comments...why so hostile? And comparing a 360/PS3, the epitome of DRM and closed systems, to a DRM free release is pretty amusing. You are aware of some of Capcom's releases on PS3 requiring a PSN connection, right? Or Sony's defacto DRM for PSN games that are restricted to 5 machines? The 360 has it's own issues, with all digital purchases being tied to one machine, issues with different gamer profiles, etc.

Can't the DRM free version be available for the people who choose the steam version as well? I like steam as a service but I also get the DRM free versions for when that's more appropriate. It's not like you're getting the game twice so it shouldn't be twice as much. Humble Indie Bundle gives both.

Good to know you guys are listening to the backer's feedback. Personally, I'm opting with the Steam version, just because I have most of my library on there, but the fact that I and all the other backers have the choice is very, very much appreciated. Now, lets make an awesome game!